WordPress and phone home

[andreasnrb]

Wp.org shouldnt get a single thing more than necessary to check for updates.
Providing anything more than version nbr of installation and plugins is a complete and utter bullshit. I really dislike that.

And if you want to provide info to wp.org then that should be your choice. That choice should not be forced upon anyone.

And the fact that it doesnt say anywhere that information is collected is a serious privacy issue.

[Brad]

I could swear we discussed this phone home issue at the Tavern before ;-)
WordPress theme repository

My main issue would be *if* someone is sharing the info collected in a competitive sense.

[chipbennett]

Slightly off topic: Let's think a minute about what Automattic all knows about the average WPTavern member (and WordPress user):

- Blog IP/URL, blog setup and what plugins we use, server set up and in many cases wp.com stats;
- Many websites use Askimet, all your comments are checked;
- Most of us have a gravatar so Automattic does know at least 80% of the blogs we comment on. Every comment can easily be linked to your IP and your blogs/urls (unless you are really wary and never comment on your own blog/use a totally different Gravatar account for your own blog and another email for wp.com stats, one more email for PollDaddy, one more to comment on other sites, aso - BS, it would be really simple to query and link all these together with a rather high precision rate);
- Automattic could easily know how we vote on any Polldaddy poll (I trust anyone not to use JAP or TOR, most people do not use proxies and have unique IPs when surfing);
- Many users will have the same login/password for wp.com as for their own blogs, probably even their day-to-day email;

I trust Automattic and wouldn't use their products if I didn't but... Yes, focus on privacy should be a very important concern.

I ascribe to the Steve Gibson axiom of security: Trust No One (TNO)

I'm sure many tens of thousands of account holders trusted their financial institution with the info, too - until their financial institution got hacked.

Regardless of Automattic's intent regarding such data, any database can, at some point, get hacked. And then those data are no longer under the control of the ostensibly benevolent Automattic.

[Ryan]

I still don't see any real problem here. Just install a plugin to strip whatever information you want removed from being sent. Seems pretty simple to me.

I guess it could be made more obvious that data is being sent, but that should be blatantly obvious from the fact that the system has an auto-update feature built in.

[Jeffro]

I knew this issue would get blown up again. It was only a matter of time. Surprised the theme repository thread didn't blow up. I'm pretty sure I responded in that thread that I think the WordPress.org website should make it clear what data is sent from the software and also, provide the end user with the option to not send that data but then list out what happens if they choose not to send that data.

[andreasnrb]

I still don't see any real problem here. Just install a plugin to strip whatever information you want removed from being sent. Seems pretty simple to me.

I guess it could be made more obvious that data is being sent, but that should be blatantly obvious from the fact that the system has an auto-update feature built in.

If you don't know that its sent how can you get a plugin that removes it?
Its not about the sending issues its about the complete disregard for the end users information. And we have no insight into how the information is managed.

And it is not blantantly obvious that it sends all that info. Ask any wordpress user if they know what information wordpress sends to Automatic. They would answer "It sends information?". Also nothing but the version nbr is required for an WordPress update.

[Elpie]

Can anybody give an actual plausible scenario in which somebody could use this data for evil purposes?

Examine the info sent:
- The plugin information is sorta required to do a plugin update check.
- The version information is useful for statistical purposes (and yes, they do statistics on them, that's how they know 11% of WP owners still run PHP 4).
- The blog URL is basically a unique identifier. Sure, you could do a unique hash or something, but why bother? It's just a URL. This is not top secret information here.

WordPress.org isn't using the blog URL for anything - that they tell us about. They don't need to have a unique identifying anything. For stats purposes its the aggregate that counts, not who does what with their open source software.

Plugin and theme checks don't need to grab a list of every plugin and theme on a site. They don't even need to send the version information or author details. A simple, "if plugin name matching this title and this description exists show the latest version number". Same with themes. Plugins & themes are not part of WordPress. There is no legitimate need for the information to be collected.

If there is no legitimate need then they shouldn't collect it. Period.

[Ryan]

Plugin and theme checks don't need to grab a list of every plugin and theme on a site. They don't even need to send the version information or author details. A simple, "if plugin name matching this title and this description exists show the latest version number". Same with themes. Plugins & themes are not part of WordPress. There is no legitimate need for the information to be collected.

I assume they just want to collect it in case it comes in handy in the future. I'd do the same unless someone could give me a good reason not to. Information can be valuable and not collecting seems kinda silly to me.

[Ryan]

... nothing but the version nbr is required for an WordPress update.

Good point. I hadn't thought of that.

[chipbennett]

I assume they just want to collect it in case it comes in handy in the future. I'd do the same unless someone could give me a good reason not to. Information can be valuable and not collecting seems kinda silly to me.

A good reason not to? It is not WordPress' data to collect without permission.

That's the point.

As has been pointed out already: if it were Microsoft, or Apple, or Norton, or the US Government, would the opinion be the same?